Stoke Space raises another billion to rival SpaceX at re-flying rockets

Stoke Space raises another billion to rival SpaceX at re-flying rockets. 25% off tickets now Back by popular demand: Save up to $300 on Disrupt Close Image Credits:Stoke Space Systems Space Stoke Space raises another billion to rival SpaceX at re-flying rockets Tim Fernholz 2:00 AM PDT · September 8, 2026 The fuel for a fully reusable rocket that can unlock truly low-cost access to space isn’t methane or liquid oxygen.

What happened

Topics Fundraising, rockets, Space, SpaceX, stoke space When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Stoke is one of a handful of startups attempting to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the low-cost rocket launch space. SpaceX has spent well over $10 billion on Starship over the last decade, and the vehicle still hasn’t yet reached orbit, although that may change on its next flight. “Regardless of Falcon 9 retiring or not retiring, the space industry and the space economy scales exactly as fast as rockets get off the ground, particularly rockets that serve third-party customers. ” That last remark is a dog whistle that satellite operators will surely hear: When SpaceX’s Starship takes flight, companies and government agencies looking to buy tickets will be competing with the space company’s internal projects, and might have to pay a premium to use the big rocket.

She is a fascinating expert witness in Alex Gibney’s four-hour epic study of the world’s richest and dullest man: the overgrown brattish South-African-born trillionaire plutocrat, ersatz visionary and Trump courtier who owns Tesla cars, SpaceX rocket ships, Starlink satellites on which nation states’ military capabilities are increasingly reliant, X (formerly Twitter) which shapes the collective “incel” id of billions and GrokAI whose vast server farms daily guzzle oceans of precious water. It's considered one of Europe's most encouraging startups, as the bloc seeks to create a rival to SpaceX and a homegrown commercial launch industry.

It’s cash, and Stoke Space Technologies is tanking up.

The wider picture

SpaceX was built around the Falcon 9, which has a reusable booster stage, and now Musk and company are trying to field a huge, fully reusable rocket (Starship). But unlike its rivals Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, or Firefly Aerospace, Lapsa’s company is aiming straight at that holy grail: A rocket where both the booster stage and the payload-carrying second stage come back to Earth so they can be reused cheaply. In particular, SpaceX has struggled to identify the right materials and configuration for the components that shield the second stage of the rocket from the extreme heat caused when it is reentering the atmosphere.

Is Lapsa drooling at the possibility of picking up increasingly desperate launch customers just as SpaceX pulls back? Stoke, on the other hand, has not revealed plans to operate its own space assets. He has closely covered the rise of the private space industry and is the author of Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the New Space Race. Unlike these illusionists Musk does have actual palpable success, with Tesla being a long-standing profitable company and Space X, among other things inventing successful re-usable rockets, allied with a skill they don’t have in moving on from commodity to commodity, while controlling the means of production in social media and cultivating the presidency.

Chief Commercial Officer Stella Guillen told CNBC on Monday that the company was now focused on scaling production, saying the space industry was "desperate" for additional launch capacity and that Isar had a pipeline worth more than 10 billion euros ($11.

What has been reported

S. competitors like Elon Musk's SpaceX, the company has big ambitions. Stoke has "completed the initial closing" of a $1B Series E round intended to help it reach orbit and prepare a new, larger rocket for operations. “To lay the infrastructure, to scale in production and flight frequency, and importantly to fund the development of the second generation vehicle. ” The round was led by Point72 Ventures (hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen’s tech investment vehicle), and Spark Capital, and included investment from General Innovation, Glade Brook Capital, US Innovative Technology, Washington Harbour Partners, Woven Capital, and Y Combinator, among others.

Stoke instead flows super-cooled liquid hydrogen through its thermal shielding, a unique active cooling solution that Lapsa says has been tested exhaustively on the ground and will be deployed on the first flight. Lapsa said that he expects Stoke’s first vehicle, the Nova Pathfinder, to take flight in early 2027. That said, few rockets get off the ground on time or with total success, and simply getting to orbit would be an achievement. Stoke also revealed plans for an even bigger rocket, the Nova Block 2, that has been under development for the past few years.

But given Musk’s boyish love of space travel and sci-fi, Gibney wittily compares him to the hero of the 1936 film version of HG Wells’s The Man Who Could Work Miracles about godlike space aliens who capriciously confer supernatural powers on a banal, ordinary earthling.

What happens next

But the question of how and when these rockets will carry us to inhabitable planets remains unanswered. Skip NavigationMarketsBusinessInvestingTechPolitics & PolicyVideoWatchlistInvesting ClubPROLivestreamMenuKey PointsIsar Aerospace reached orbit and deployed satellites on just its second test flight. The German startup says its commercial pipeline exceeds 10 billion euros amid booming launch demand. In this articleSPCXFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNTwatch nowVIDEO5:4605:46Isar Aerospace makes history with Europe's first commercial rocket launchSquawk Box EuropeGerman rocket maker Isar Aerospace successfully reached orbit for the first time over the weekend, marking a milestone for Europe's commercial space industry as the company looks to ramp up launches to meet what it says is booming demand.

An Isar Aerospace rocket launches into orbit fromIsar Aerospace"The demand is so big," Guillen told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe. "It really is about scaling and being able to launch… not one rocket but hundreds of rockets. "This marks the beginning of a new era," Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Sunday on X, while EU defense and space commissioner Andrius Kubilius said: "Europe's independent access to space just got a major boost.

The report has been compiled by The Daily Waves using information reported across techcrunch.com, theguardian.com, cnbc.com. Details are presented according to the information available at the time of publication and may change as authorities, organisers or other relevant parties provide updates.